PARWICH.ORG

Major Benjamin Ingham has sent us this latest post having recently returned to Afghanistan following 2 weeks rest and recuperation. Ben says it was great to return to Parwich and was delighted to receive positive comments on his posts to us.

Summer is finally upon us and over the space of a few weeks the heat has risen considerably.  Summer also marks the arrival of ‘fighting season’ when the insurgent fighters return to Afghanistan from their winter bed-down locations, usually within the security of the mountains and valleys hills of the Pakistan border region.  Eager to demonstrate their intent to continue the insurgency campaign the rise in attacks increases considerably and, therefore, no coalition camp is exempt from increased security measures.  The only time you are not within arms distance of your issue rifle is when you are in the gym or running within the relative security of the camp perimeter.  Unfortunately, a rifle does little to deter the insurgents from mounting IDF (indirect fire) attacks against us.  Additionally, in a separate attack the tragic death of 7 US members of camp came as a great loss.

Although it took a while to track him down, I finally managed to meet up with another Parwich villager, Nettle (Jonathon or Larry) Foden, for a brew and a chat.  Tucked away in a small compound in the bowels of one of the largest, dustiest military camps in Afghanistan, over 2500 thousand miles from Parwich, we swapped tales of village life and our respective military experiences to date.  We had originally made contact through Parwich.org but had we walked past one another in uniform I am sure we would never had recognized one another.  Although he has spent a majority of life within the military, on numerous operational deployments, Nettle is still passionate about Parwich and village life in general.  Despite us both being ‘outsiders’ we agreed that him having spent 40 years and me 30 years living in Parwich that we could almost categorise ourselves as Parwich ‘locals’. We marked the occasion with a photo for Parwich.org and a promise to meet again when the opportunity arose.

Over the last few weeks I have been making a concerted effort to try and put on some weight.  The change of location, monotony of the same meals, irregular working hours and heat and general stress had all taken their toll on my eating habits and I have been steadily losing weight for the last 3 months.  For the first time in many years I have been able to see my ribs and the arrival of a homemade fruitcake was gladly received which, between the members of the office, was quickly devoured – thanks Mum!